Background 

Challenge and Change exists to centre young changemakers – individuals, collectives and movements who are not only imaging better futures but actively building them. 

Young people are already doing the work, organising, resisting, repairing and building. But too often, their work is underfunded. 

We will be awarding funding to the third cohort of 38 young lived experience leaders. This is in the form of grants of up to £10,000, being made to individuals, collectives, and movements, tackling a wide range of social issues to challenge social injustice, based across England. 

We are now seeking a brilliant communicator who can build strong relationships with these partners being funded through Challenge and Change, to support them to share their stories of social change with the wider world. This could either be as an individual or group/organisation. In line with the programme’s values, we’ll be prioritising those who are/have been lived experienced leaders themselves.

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Purpose 

We want to work alongside a storyteller for three main reasons: 

- To support Challenge and Change partners (up to 38 but may be less as this is not a compulsory part of the programme) to reflect on their own journeys and what they are learning as they go 

- To help partners communicate their achievements and learning to the wider world to create a platform and build momentum in support of their work 

- To provide an additional touchpoint for the Blagrave team with partners to stay in touch on their work and progress, forming an important part of our light-touch monitoring activity and replacing the need for partners to write impact reports.

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Questions to address 

The storyteller should use the following questions to structure their conversations with Challenge and Change partners:

 - What are they doing to create social change? 

- How are they using/integrating their lived experiences in their work? 

- What does success look like for them? (How do they define this and what circumstances lead to it)? 

- What are they learning? 

- What do they want to be different about their experiences of leading social change? 

- How are they finding the overall Challenge and Change programme, Do they have any feedback to improve it? 

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The audience 

There are three main audiences for this work: 

- Young people themselves: supporting them to learn, celebrate and improve. 

- Blagrave and other interested funders: helping us learn about partners’ progress and how we can best support young lived experienced leaders of social change in the future. 

- Young people and others interested or involved in related social change work: helping share achievements and build momentum. 

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Being mindful of the overlaps and differences of these audiences’ interests will be a key part of the storyteller’s role, and they should think through how they will meet and manage different needs at different times, and the challenges in doing so. 

We want this work to be a space for those funded through Challenge and Change to be able to share both where they wish they’d done things differently, and how they’ve worked through the challenges and learning associated with this as well as where they’ve had success and opportunities to learn. The storyteller should be able to create a safe and confidential space for these conversations, and work with Challenge and Change partners to decide what is shared with Blagrave, what is shared publicly and what needs to remain confidential (within the remits of safeguarding).

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Access to people and information 

The Challenge and Change team will support you to build relationships with all the young people in the cohort. Ideally, the storyteller should be able to attend an inperson gathering of our whole C&C cohort on Saturday 8th November 2025 in London. Partners will know that they are expected to check in with the storyteller twice across the program to update on their journeys, along with Blagrave’s Challenge and Change officer. Each Challenge and Change partner will be expected to have an in-depth conversation of up to two hours with the storyteller at least once online and once in person over the course of the program.

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Output 

We are interested in your ideas on which products and outputs would be most useful given the audiences and purposes set out above, for the budget provided below. We are most interested in methods that are creative, support curiosity and reflection, and will be impactful for young people and social change ‘professionals’ alike. We would be interested in short videos, audio recordings/podcasts, artistic representations and/or written outputs capturing this work but are very open to suggestions.

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What we are looking for 

We are seeking a storytelling partner, who is: 

- A people-person: can quickly build rapport and mutual understanding with Challenge and Change funded partners 

- Confident and with the right skills and experience to work independently 

- Has common ground with Challenge and Change partners in terms of their age, life experience and approach to social change (as set out in the call-out for Challenge and Change) 

- Is equally comfortable working alongside Blagrave, other funders of Challenge and Change and other interested audiences to communicate what is coming out of the programme

And is: 

- Experienced in identifying and drawing out relevant information from a lot of data, using that to build an honest, concise narrative 

- Skilled in the production of a range of media methods to appropriately communicate partners’ social change journeys 

- Respectful of and will seek to honour different people’s voices and stories We will prioritise those who are or have been Lived experienced leaders in line with the programmes values.

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Timelines 

Applications close 11:59pm Sunday 21st September 2025 

Interviews w/c Monday 6th October 2025 

Appointed by Friday 24th October 2025 

Induction w/c 27th October and 3rd November 2025 

Welcome day Saturday 8th November 2025

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Budget 

Up to £30,000 is available for this project, including VAT if applicable. 

This will need to cover: 

- Meeting the current Challenge and Change cohort at the welcome event on Saturday 8th November 2025 

- Visits to meet with each Challenge and Change partner in person once by October 2026 

- As much online contact either side of meeting as you think is necessary to build relationships and understand stories (at least 1 online meeting in addition to meeting once in person) 

- Time taken to compile /write up stories and present and circulate them in a way that is meaningful and will reach the audiences above 

- Travel / accommodation – this is a national program, so you may need to travel or stay across England.

- Equipment use/hire. 

Please state in your proposal how much you would require for this work and a topline overview of how your budget would break down.

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Safeguarding 

The successful applicant will be required to undertake a basic DBS check and will be required to provide two references. They will also be expected to comply with Blagrave’s safeguarding policy and processes at all times.

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Next steps 

Please contact Rochell Rowe (rochell.rowe@blagravetrust.org ) with your proposal by 11:59pm Sunday 21st September 2025. 

We would like to see an overview of how you would approach the work, your skills and experience, and details of two referees in whichever of the following formats suits you best: 

• A written proposal in no more than 1000 words 

• A video recording of no more than 5 minutes in length 

• An audio recording of no more than 5 minutes in length

Regardless of the format, you should cover: 

• Your approach to this work and how you would structure it, including budgeting for different elements 

• Your reflections on the questions above and whether/how you would tackle them 

• Your experience and knowledge of social change and youth leadership within this 

• Your recommendations for how we structure and release this work to ensure maximum usefulness to the audiences mentioned above 

• Examples of your track record of carrying out work of this nature (can be submitted as links or attachments).

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We will then follow up with an in person interview for any successful applicants.

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We are happy to answer any questions you may have before submitting your overview. Please contact Rochell at the email address above with any questions you may have.